---
title: At these words the Giant began to howl and lament. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At these words the Giant began to howl and lament. Who acts: Giant. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 2, sentence 41

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At these words the Giant began to howl and lament.

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**Who acts:** Giant · **What happens:** begin, howl, lament · **To what, where:** words

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Giant), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7277:37:41
# text = At these words the Giant began to howl and lament.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
3	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	nsubj	_	_
6	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	howl	howl	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	lament	lament	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | the Giant |  |  | this words |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **howl** | to-infinitive | the Giant *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lament** | infinitive | the Giant *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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